Enslaved (24 page)

Delilah du Lac or Daisy Lake—whatever you call yourself, you’ve met your match in me.

“Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand; and—in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will …”

Reciting her lines later that afternoon, the early pivotal point of the play where Rosalind decides to disguise herself as a boy, Daisy paced the four corners of her dressing room, dog-eared script in hand. She didn’t know why she bothered with holding the thing. She knew her lines by heart as well as those of every other cast member. The weight of the play in hand was a comforting feeling, for whatever reason. Theater people were notoriously superstitious and though she was less credulous than many, she was not above observing a small ritual here and there. In her case, she kept a copper penny she always tucked into her left shoe before going on for luck.

The past week with Gavin had been not only the luckiest but the happiest of her life. Before, missing Freddie had blunted her bliss, not to mention the effort she expended on deceiving Gavin into believing she had a lover waiting for her. Looking back from the vantage point of only a week, the ruse seemed silly, certainly self-defeating. Now that she’d sworn off lying to him, the scattered pieces of her life seemed to be finally falling into place. She had the man she loved, the child she adored, and the parents to whom she was devoted, finally all on English soil. Her future was by no means assured, but it was shaping up to look as if she’d be able to provide for them in their old age. Last but surely not least, she had the leading role in a proper play—by Shakespeare, no less. With so many blessings raining down upon her, how could she possibly feel otherwise than blissfully, extravagantly happy?

Impatient rapping outside her dressing room door interrupted her musing. Wondering if it might be Gavin come to deliver that good luck kiss he promised her earlier, she took a moment to check her reflection in the mirror. She might not be the most beautiful woman in the theater—her upside down mouth and turned up nose guaranteed she was not—but she was definitely the happiest. And happiness, she was discovering, lent one a radiance which was impossible to manufacture with powder and paint. Tucking a loose curl behind one ear, she gave the call to enter.

“Gavin,
chéri,
I wasn’t really expecting—”

Instead of Gavin, a fierce-faced man of sixty-odd stepped inside the narrow room. “Miss Lake, I presume?”

Daisy backed up a step and nodded. “That is so. I’m afraid the theater is closed to the public at present. If you’ve come about tomorrow’s performance, you can purchase your ticket when the box office opens at five.”

“I’m not here about a play but about my grandson. I’m Maximilian St. John, Gavin’s grandfather.”

Feeling as if a cold draught had just swept inside the room, she stepped back for him to enter. “Won’t you come in?”

He stepped inside, the tip of his cane clacking on the uncarpeted floor. She gestured him to a pair of chairs but he shook his head. Looking her up and down, he said, “I haven’t set foot in Paris since my Grand Tour as a young man, but still you don’t sound very French to me.”

Wishing she might be wearing anything other than her breeches, she answered, “I’m not. I’m English … as English as you are,” she added on impulse, and regretted it at once.

This sour-faced gentleman was Gavin’s grandfather, after all. Determined to demonstrate her manners, if not her pedigree, were those of a lady, she asked, “Would you care for some refreshment? Shall I send out for tea?”

“Don’t trouble yourself. This isn’t a social call but a business one.”

Determined not to let him intimidate her, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “What business could you possibly have with me?”

“I’m here on behalf of my grandson.”

Already on alert, his statement sent her spiraling toward full-blown panic. “Gavin’s all right, isn’t he? I mean, nothing has happened, has it? I left him just a few hours ago.”

She stopped short of saying more, such as the circumstances in which she’d left him—lying naked in her bed. Snuggled next to him so close she could feel his heart beating against her breast, their limbs interleaved as though they were of one body in truth, she’d felt utterly warm and replete, wholly satisfied and content for, quite possibly, the first time in her adult life. Even jittery with nerves about this night’s performance and how its success or failure would decide her future, tearing herself away from all that peace and contentment had required considerable willpower.

“His physical condition is sound though his judgment at the moment is fatally flawed.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I’ve just come from lunching with Gavin at my club. It seems my grandson has his mind set on marrying you.”

It took Daisy several heartbeats to absorb the news. As often as Gavin had mentioned their being a family, she hadn’t counted on that meaning marriage. To broach the subject with his grandfather, he must be seriously considering it. “I beg your pardon.”

“Please don’t feel obliged to demonstrate your acting skills on my behalf, Miss Lake. I have no doubt you’ve been leading Gavin to this point for some time, ever since you arranged to have him see you perform at that … that supper club. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn his other two chums, the Scot and that photographer chap were in league with you all along.”

“I assure you, I arranged nothing. Our meeting again was purely by chance. If you must know, I tried sending him away.”

St. John let out a snort. “Which as a woman of the world you well knew would only increase his ardor, but no matter. Be that as it may, you should know I have no intention of allowing you to ruin Gavin’s life. If I must, I will cut him off without so much as a penny.”

“I wouldn’t hurt Gavin for the world. I … I love him.” She’d yet to say those words to Gavin. Confronted with this cold-eyed man, she worried she might never find the courage—or the chance—to do so.

“I have in my pocket a bank draft for five thousand pounds, enough to keep you in reasonable comfort for the rest of your days, more than modest if you invest it wisely.”

“You can’t think to bribe me.” He tried handing her the note but she backed away, shaking her head.

“Don’t be a fool, Miss Lake. Take this and send him away and start a new life for yourself and your family.”

“It is you who are the fool, Mr. St. John. Your bribe and your threats are both unnecessary. There is no need to induce me to cry off an engagement to which I never would have consented. As much as I love Gavin, I’m not such a fool to think a marriage between us would ever be acceptable to his family or anyone else in society.”

“If that is even half of the truth then you, Miss Lake, are a young woman of rare good sense.”

She tore the bank draft in half and handed him back the pieces.

“What’s this? I don’t understand. I warn you, young woman, if you’re angling for more …”

Daisy felt tears burning the backs of her eyes, but she’d sooner go blind than give him the satisfaction of shedding them. “I don’t care if your offer is five thousand pounds or five hundred thousand. Arguably, I may need it, I most certainly could use it, and yet I won’t take it, not so much as a farthing.”

For the first time since barging in, the old man looked less than sure of himself. “In that case, I rescind my earlier statement. You, young woman, are a fool, indeed. If you won’t look to your own future, then look to your daughter’s.”

At his contemptuous mention of her child, Daisy felt her tether hold on her temper snap. “My family’s well-being is my affair, and I don’t welcome your intrusion any more than you would welcome mine. As for the other, when it comes to Gavin, I am a very great fool, a fool for love.”

Sweeping past him, she reached for the brass knob and yanked open the door. Standing aside, she sent a pointed look out into the empty corridor.

“Good day to you, sir. Consider whatever business you thought to have with me concluded once and for all.”

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine.”
—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
, Rosalind,
As You Like It

T
he slam of the dressing room door at his back brought Maximilian St. John out of his stupefied state. Never had it occurred to him the chit might turn down his offer—or his check. When she first refused, he supposed her game was to bargain for more money, but now it seemed that wasn’t so. Instead of haggling, she turned him down flat and showed him the door, hardly the actions of a scheming adventuress. Might Gavin’s actress have more substance to her than met the eye?

When it comes to Gavin, I am a very great fool, a fool for love.

It was a pretty speech, but for any actress worth her salt, such a siloquy must roll off the tongue easily enough. More than the words, it was the earnestness in her eyes and the trembling about her mouth when she’d said them that caught at his curmudgeon’s heart. Old age must be softening his brain as well because he could almost believe the gel really loved his grandson.

Her stage name was Delilah du Lac, a tart’s moniker, but earlier Gavin had called her by her true name. Daisy Lake, wasn’t it? Why that name should ring so familiar he couldn’t say. Ah, yes, wasn’t that the name of the little orphan girl Gavin had always run on about, that first year especially?

The same little orphan girl whose letters he made very certain Gavin never saw?

All at once he felt as if his cravat was choking him.
Dear God, what have I done?

Stepping out onto the sunlit street, he set out in the direction of his parked carriage. At his approach, his driver started up from the box but Maximilian shook his head. “I’ll walk a bit.”

He forged blindly on, for the first time in his sixty-five years not caring where he went or how long it took him to get there. It was one of those rare spring days blessed with a canopy of cornflower blue sky without a rain cloud in sight. There was even a bit of balm to the breeze, and yet Maximilian fancied he felt the draft of Daisy Lake’s icy emerald gaze at his back as though it were November instead of May. Before he knew it, he was at the entrance to a small public park. Stopping to catch his breath, he took out his pocket watch, a relic from his own grandfather’s day which still managed to keep the time, and realized he’d been walking for nearly an hour.

The park wasn’t much of a park at all but rather a gated green space scattered with benches and boasting a small pond in its center that was obviously manmade. Across the green, a trio of boys played ducks and drakes, skipping stones across the still water and taking delight in terrorizing the ornamental fishes. Picnicking on the grassy knoll were a young man and young woman, newlyweds, he suspected, and seemingly very much in love. Perched on the edge of the blanket with the remains of their feast spread out before them, the woman leaned over the wicker hamper and accepted the slice of cheese the man slid between her parted lips.

The sight made Max feel weary and wistful and irredeemably old. Turning away, he eyed the nearest bench, the one end occupied by a smartly dressed woman of his age or thereabouts. Though her delicately lined face was shadowed by the brim of her bonnet, something about her struck him as exceedingly familiar. He squinted, blinked, and then looked again before it struck him. The woman sedately knitting and occasionally glancing out onto the green was his old friend, Lottie Rivers. He hadn’t seen her since the Stonevale charity ball where her niece-by-marriage, Caledonia, had come in the company of Gavin’s photographer friend, whom she married under somewhat sketchy circumstances. Good Lord, had a year really passed by so quickly?

For a fleeting moment, he considered turning away and leaving before she saw him, but all at once she looked up, snagging his gaze. She smiled and raised a glove hand, beckoning him over, and courtesy demanded he pause long enough to at least say hello.

Reaching her, he said, “I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t certain at first.”

Shielding her eyes from the sun with the edge of one slender hand, she looked up at him and smiled. “I thought it might be you, too, but without my spectacles I couldn’t be sure.”

“I didn’t know you wore spectacles.” Staring down at her, he noted how the years had softened her once brilliant violet eyes to an equally lovely shade of gray-blue. Whatever their color, it would be a shame to hide their light behind glass and wire rims.

“I don’t. That’s my very problem.” She tapped him with her closed parasol and let out a little laugh, the sort that brought to mind a hand bell’s tinkling or the clinking of champagne flutes joining in a toast, and against all odds Maximilian found himself laughing with her.

“Do have a seat, Max.” She patted the vacant space beside her and shifted over to make room.

He hesitated and then settled beside her, the stiffness in his knees scarcely bothering him at all. “Thank you.”

They sat in companionable silence for some time, looking out onto the park, and it occurred to Maximilian it had been a very long time since he’d sat with a woman thus. So long, in point, he’d come close to forgetting what an exceedingly pleasant feeling it was.

At length, Lottie turned to him and said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what brings you here, Max?”

Not yet ready to surrender the serenity of the moment, he regarded the knob of his walking stick and shrugged. “Can’t a man seek sojourn on a park bench and enjoy a fine spring day if he chooses?”

“Of course he can only I’ve never before known that man to be you. I come here and sit nearly every day when the weather is fine and today is the first I’ve ever crossed paths with you.”

Giving up the game, he turned to her and admitted, “I’ve just had an interview with a young woman, an actress, and I’m afraid I muddled things rather badly.”

She arched one half-moon brow and regarded him. “An actress, Max, at your age? Why, I’m not certain whether I should offer my congratulations or rap your knuckles and give you a good dressing down.”

“Neither will be necessary.” He felt his face heat though his hat brim more than shielded him from the sun. “It wasn’t … that is to say, it wasn’t that sort of, er … interview.”

Looking over at her, he saw she was smiling again, a mischievous and rather sexy smile that shot a funny little fluttering sensation in the vicinity of his heart. Leave it to Lottie to tease him out of his sourness.

“What sort was it, then? I don’t mean to pry but you look … troubled.”

She’d always had a canny knack for reading him. “It’s a rather long and involved story, I’m afraid.”

Reaching over, she patted the top of his hand. “That’s all right, Max. At our age, what have we but time?”

“Very well, but once I’ve done, don’t be surprised if you don’t find yourself wanting to poke the point of that knitting needle into my eye.”

She cocked her head to the side and regarded him. “That bad, is it?”

“Worse, I’m afraid.”

He took a deep breath and recounted the story. Not sparing himself, he started with the day fifteen years before when he swept into the headmaster’s office at Roxbury House hell bent on erasing every painful memory in Gavin’s past, including his year-long stay in the orphanage, by sheer force of will.

She listened in patient silence. Only when he concluded with the recent disastrous meeting with Daisy did he dare glance her way. He steeled himself to see loathing in her lovely face, but instead he saw only compassion and sadness.

“Oh Lottie, what am I to do? If I’ve misjudged the gel then I may have lost my grandson his chance at happiness. And yet, even if she does love Gavin as she claims, she’s an actress, even worse, a former dance hall girl. I want Gavin to be happy, but how can I possibly give my blessing to such a union?”

“How, indeed?” Regarding the knitting lying neglected in her lap, she took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Let me ask you this: were you happy married to your Rose?”

Even wondering down what path she was leading him, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I was.”

“Rose and I attended the same French finishing school. We were chums, if you recall, or had you forgotten?” When he admitted he had forgotten, she added, “Would it surprise you to learn that Rose was considered quite scandalous in our day? She was always finding ways to sneak out at night and during our last term there was even a flirtation with a French dancing master that very nearly got her expelled. You knew about that, of course.”

“I’d heard … talk. It all took place so very long ago, I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“But at the time you knew and yet you married her anyway and, as you’ve just said, you were happy with her.”

Swallowing against the sudden tightness banding his throat, he nodded. “She was the light of my life.” He turned away, feeling moisture dampen his eye. “Until Lucy ran off and eloped, there was never a cross word between us. She never forgave me for not bringing our daughter and her husband home.”

“In that case, don’t make the same mistake a second time.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late.”

“Poppycock, as long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it falls to you to find the means to set matters between Gavin and his actress to rights. Do whatever you must, Max, but above all make it right.”

For Daisy, the rest of the afternoon slipped by in a sort of semi-recollected haze. She navigated the dress rehearsal without conscious thought or deliberate action much as she imagined a sleepwalker might. Several times the director had to stop to feed her a line she memorized weeks before but only just forgot, or to call out a cue she missed for the very first time. By the end of Act Three, both he and her fellow players were thoroughly exasperated with her, not that she faulted them for it. Rosalind was the pivotal character of the play, after all. The success of the performance rested heavily on her shoulders. If she failed her first night out, the critics would lambaste the performance, and her theatrical career would be finished before it had even begun. And yet more than worrying over forgotten lines or slighting reviews, she couldn’t stop thinking about Gavin. It was as if the real play, the real drama, was taking place not onstage but in her head.

Back in her dressing room, she stripped off her costume, slipped on her silk dressing gown, and tied back her hair. She was reaching for her pot of cleansing cream when she heard raised voices in the hallway outside her door. Mr. St. John returned? She certainly hoped not. The visitation by her lover’s grandsire was not an experience she cared to repeat this day or any day thereafter. She opened the door and poked her head out. Somehow she wasn’t really surprised to see Gavin striding down the barrow hallway, two burly stagehands in tow.

He gained her door along with the stagehands who rushed in behind him, apologies bubbling forth. “Sorry, miss. He slipped straight by us.”

“No, really, it’s perfectly fine, lads. Mr. Carmichael is a … friend.”

They bobbed their capped heads and backed out, pulling the door closed. Knowing what she must do, Daisy hated to see them go.

Gavin came toward her, arms open, a bouquet of daisies clenched in one gloved hand. “A friend, am I? I rather hoped at this point I was more to you than that. Serves me right, I suppose. I’m late delivering that good luck kiss I promised you this morning. Better late than never, I hope?” He leaned toward her.

She turned her head so his lips fell upon her cheek. “The rehearsal ended a few minutes ago. I was just about to wash my face. You’ll get paint on you.”

“It won’t be the first time or the last, for that matter. A spot of stage paint here and there is one of the hazards of keeping company with an actress and an altogether trifling price to pay for kissing such sweet lips as yours. I believe I’ll risk it.” He reached for her again.

“Is that what we’re doing? Keeping company?” Such a thoroughly proper phrase made it sound as though she were a debutante at her come-out ball and Gavin her suitor rather than what they were—lovers who could never be more.

Gavin slid a single gloved finger down the line of her throat, drawing a shiver from her. “Among other things.”

Even with her heart breaking, she couldn’t help wanting to be with him one more time, couldn’t help thinking how easy it would be to simply open her robe and her legs and take him inside her.

She saw the flash of desire in his eyes just before he reached for her. Not trusting herself to resist, she held out a hand to stay him. Flattening a palm against his chest, she made herself push him away. “Gavin, I said no.”

“I see.” Smile slipping, he handed her the bouquet, a far more reputable bunch of daisies than he’d given her the last time. “I take it the rehearsal went poorly?”

She turned away. “It did indeed.”

Coming up behind her, he laid warm hands atop her shoulders. “It’s only a rehearsal. Nerves are to be expected, but once the curtain goes up on the real performance, you’ll be splendid, you’ll see.” He pulled her against him and for a brief moment she let herself fall back into all that masculine strength and pretend everything could still be made right.